Fletcher on Sir Alex and his apps!
DARREN FLETCHER ON UNITED, ILLNESS AND HIS DREAM FOR WEST BROM
‘Keane would nail me...but I’ve always liked him!’
FIRST of all, the telling of a story that doesn’t sound very much like Darren Fletcher at all. May 1999 and 15- year- old Fletcher is on his way home from the Scottish Schools Cup final with his father.
‘I set up loads of goals and had all my mates watching in the crowd,’ Fletcher recalled. ‘I was showing off and trying to nutmeg people. My dad was on at me. He said I hadn’t run back or worked.
‘He said, “You are never going to be a footballer playing like that. Just get the ball and pass it. You are a team player”. That has stuck with me. Winning 5-0 and going home with a medal while your dad calls you a show pony in the car. He was right, of course.’
Get the ball and pass it. When Fletcher winds down his career, it would be a suitable epitaph. Now 32, he has been doing it for years.
‘Here at West Brom the manager wants me to be disciplined,’ he said, smiling. ‘I am feeling like I want to run all over the pitch but he wants me to use my experience, reining me in. But it’s all good. I’ve been here before, haven’t I?’
Fletcher’s debut at his first club Manchester United was delayed by two years because of injuries. When it came in 2003, it set a tone.
‘I was thrown in on the right wing but it was the same,’ he said. ‘Ronaldo doing tricks and not running back and frustrating everyone. And I am there running back, working, doing what I am told.
‘But I was playing with amazing players like Paul Scholes and Roy Keane and you realise you have to find a niche for yourself. So that’s what I did. I worked.
‘Roy said to me once, “I could play for 10 years with you doing all my running, Fletch”. You can’t understand how much that meant. For me, it’s worked and I have loved it. I still love it.’
Fletcher has been a West Brom player for two years. Since joining from United, he has started every one of his team’s 73 Premier League games, some achievement for a player whose career had been threatened by the bowel condition ulcerative colitis.
Fletcher drives 80 miles to training from the family home in Cheshire and often spends that time on the phone to sufferers of the illness that almost ruined him. Surgery to remove his large intestine in January 2013 allowed Fletcher to return to relatively normal life but many others still suffer.
‘It feels like a long time ago, like a blur,’ he said. ‘It’s crazy looking back at how ill I was. I was scared at times but I always thought I would get back. Maybe it was stubbornness.
‘The lad I spoke to today is a footballer in non-League and I was trying to encourage him to think he could get through. They all think I have had some magic cure, special treatment for a wealthy footballer. But that’s not the case.
‘I have suffered the same things as these people. It’s an embarrass- ing subject but I speak openly. I want to help.
‘I am told people now associate the illness with my recovery and if that brings hope to people that’s good. You can get your life back.’
FLETCHER wears the responsibility of a profile that now reaches outside sport very well. He is a natural captain and is encouraging people to set their sights high.
‘We are trying to get away from the mentality of just accepting survival every season,’ he said.
His years at United introduced him to different styles of leadership. Keane would confront poor attitudes head on. Scholes and Ryan Giggs did it on the training field.
‘I am not one to kick people in training if they have not been behaving,’ he said. ‘I used to leave that to Scholesy and I don’t do it here.
‘I will try to lead by example, by my voice in the dressing room and then one-on-one if necessary. It’s not top of my list to go flying in with verbals. Sir Alex (Ferguson) always said, “Watch the first-team players. Listen to what they say”. I believe in that.’
Fletcher won five Premier League titles at United and played more than 350 games. Ferguson shaped his career. And then there was Keane. ‘It frustrates me that some people think Roy didn’t rate me because he probably moulded me more than any other player I have known,’ he said.
‘He was hard on me but he was always fair. If he spoke to me 10 times, nine were compliments. If I was late, Roy would let me know. If my passing wasn’t on in training then Roy would let me know.
‘People remember the controversial stories and the times he went mental. But the rest of the time he made me feel on top of the world.
‘What about the story where I’ve been out for two months and Roy says loudly, “I am glad this lad’s back. We have missed him”. That’s not a great story. It’s a better story to say, “Remember that time Roy nailed Fletch in the dressing room for looking at his phone”.
‘That did happen, yeah. But it was rare and that was just about standards. It was his way of getting a message to everybody. That is what it was like at United.
‘I just watched Roy and learned, but above all of that I just liked him. I still like him. He was an unbelievable leader and a fantastic player, the best first touch I ever saw.
‘I walked on the pitch next to him and knew we would be fine. That is leadership. p. It’s what I want to do for people eople at this club.’
Footballll hasha s changed since Fletcher’s debut but he insists that basic principles haven’t.
‘Players have grown up with phoneshones and social media, ia, so for us to ban them hem here would be a bit much,’ he said. ‘ It’s about doing the right thing. Phones are re switched off at thee right time, don’t worry. y.
‘Sir Alex used to say he couldn’t treatreat us like he used to treat reat his Aberdeen team simply because we were a different generation. We were no longer working class ass so had to be treated differently. ferently.
‘ He used ed to deliver messages, , then suddenly you find yourself thinking these things ngs and acting differently. ly. It’s subtle, brilliant management. Not just changing ging us as players but also as s people.
‘He had an iPad, too, and all the apps. He had someone at the club following ollowing players on
Twitter. So he would say to a player, “Did you have a good day out yesterday?” and the player would be, “How the hell did he know I was there?” and I would be thinking, “Well obviously you have posted a picture of yourself on Twitter haven’t you!” ‘He didn’t need to have spies in nightclubs any more, he could do it all from his armchair! ‘It’s funny to think back. He was an incredible man. Those two people shaped the person sitting in front of you today.’
FLETCHER has always been obsessed with European football and he believes Tony Pulis can bring it to West Brom. Ahead of tomorrow’s game at Tottenham, they are eighth and Fletcher said: ‘I see giving fans a European night at the Hawthorns as something special to strive for. ‘I would love that. We may have to sign a couple of players and play every week on a Sunday, but big deal. Why not the Europa League next season? ‘Maybe it’s the illness and the thrill of being back but I set myself new goals when I came here. To get into Europe would be like winning the Premier League. I love it here. It excites me.’ Fletcher grew up wanting to play in a Champions League final. He would watch Celtic as a boy, wore an Ajax away kit in 1995 and was inspired by Paul Lambert, a fellow Scot, winning it with Borussia Dortmund two years later. ‘ Basile Boli scored the winner in the first final,’ he said unprompted. ‘My dad taped it for me.’ He never played in a final and it irks him. He was twice an unused substitute and was unjustly suspended when he would have played, against Barcelona in Rome in 2009. Nevertheless, he believes he was part of an era of English football that left its mark. ‘People talk about teams pressing but we did that first and then Barcelona took it on,’ he explained. ‘Before that in Spain it was, “You have it, we have it and then let’s see who is best with it”. But they saw what United did and realised that was the way to go. ‘It’s perfect. You don’t even let the opposition have the chance to be in that lovely nice game. Barca eliminated that, but we did that first. ‘Get the ball back in quickly at throw-ins, don’t let teams settle, get after them. That’s what we did for years in Europe.’
The man who refined the system is now in the Premier League. Pep Guardiola has not had it all his own way at Manchester City and Fletcher’s take on that and his belief in Pulis’s methods are fascinating.
Fletcher said: ‘I heard Guardiola speak about the English use of the “second ball” and it was interesting. English teams recognise you can control a game without possession.
‘Turning teams round, playing a ball up and not caring if you win the first ball but ensuring you win the second or third ball. That’s unique to British football.
‘I am not sure you get too many of those phrases in Spain, where your manager always talks about pass completion.
‘That’s why stats don’t always work. There are times when I can play a pass that’s not complete, but it’s what this team needs.
‘It can leave a good team facing its own goal. They have to put the ball out of play and then we have territory and a throw-in that we have worked at.
‘So now the ball is in their area and we get a chance or a corner. We are progressing but I haven’t completed a pass have I?
‘So my stats are down but I have done my job.
‘At Man City or Barcelona, your passing stats will be off the charts but you have to look at football with your eyes as well. A pass that goes five yards isn’t always that dangerous, is it?’
To listen to the way Fletcher has broadened his understanding in two years is intriguing. He has designs on coaching and keeps thoughts and ideas in a notebook.
What about 2009, though? People say he could have made the difference against Barcelona.
‘Some people say my reputation grew by not playing,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Look, we had a good thing going. I was pressing and getting after people and it was great.
‘But would it have worked against Xavi and Iniesta? Maybe not having to try got me a few more years at United…’
LAST October, as Manchester United drew at Liverpool, Fletcher was in the away end. It was not new to him. He did it sometimes when away from the game with illness.
In 2004, he travelled to the European Championship with friends. He wore a kilt, a Timberland boot on his right foot and a pot protecting an injury on his left.
‘We had a great week watching the football,’ he said, grinning. ‘I didn’t tell United about it...
‘You miss being a fan when you play. You miss the occasion and the tribalism. I see myself as normal, so I didn’t see why I wouldn’t go to Anfield or previously to City or to watch Celtic.
‘ I went and sang songs and jumped around and supported my mates. I loved it.’ Fletcher is still close to many at Old Trafford and Wayne Rooney used to send Fletcher’s two sons England shirts. Now it’s football boots.
Last Saturday the two friends had dinner.
‘He was thrilled to score and equal Sir Bobby’s record,’ he said. ‘ It means the world to him.’
I ask if Rooney feels underappreciated by some.
‘Everybody wants recognition,’ he said. ‘You always think you should have more. But he’s broken records, captained United and England, won everything.
‘He’s up there with the best, every bit as influential as Ronaldo in his day.
‘Those two went toe to toe one year, but after that, to allow Ronaldo to go forwards, Wayne fell back and was a team player and that was what they needed.
‘ People with good football intelligence will realise that. Others may not. Yeah, we had a bit of dinner. He is a great lad.’
Fletcher will watch as United and Liverpool meet again on Sunday. He recognises familiar signs.
‘Playing against them the other week, they felt like a Jose Mourinho team,’ he said. ‘Like Chelsea of old. Game management, slowing the game down, tactical fouls, getting back to a shape, being measured.
‘I hear good things from the club. Jose is enjoying it and that’s important. That will transmit itself to the players.
‘United could surprise people and win the league. They are working so hard for him.’
A conversation that started with the virtues of hard work has come full circle, and as Fletcher prepares for consecutive West Brom league appearance No 74 at Spurs tomorrow, the scale of his recent journey once again becomes clear.
‘Since I have come back I have hardly missed a day’s training, but don’t think I have been flying fit every day because I haven’t,’ he said. ‘Like most players, I have played sick, ill and injured.
‘I wish I was the player of my pre-illness days but I am not. I had all that strength, speed, power and stamina and that’s not the same now. It’s not because of the surgery, more because I am 33 next month.
‘I missed three years of my prime career and that’s a shame but that’s just a part of my story. I am a footballer still. I am very lucky.’